A Scientometrics Review On City Logistics Literature: Research Trends, Advanced Theory and Practice

sustainability
Review
A Scientometrics Review on City Logistics Literature:
Research Trends, Advanced Theory and Practice
Wanjie Hu 1 , Jianjun Dong 1, *, Bon-gang Hwang 2 , Rui Ren 3 and Zhilong Chen 3, *
1 College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China; steve_hu@vip.163.com
2 Department of Building, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117566, Singapore;
bdghbg@nus.edu.sg
3 College of Defense Engineering, Army Engineering University of PLA, Nanjing 210042, China;
renrui0801@163.com
* Correspondence: dongjj@njtech.edu.cn (J.D.); chen-zl@vip.163.com (Z.C.)

Received: 26 March 2019; Accepted: 3 May 2019; Published: 14 May 2019
Abstract: The contradiction between the contribution of city logistics (CL) to sustainable urban
development and its negative externalities is increasingly prominent. Policy supervision measures
and the green logistics initiative are also in conflict with the management goal of logistics enterprises.
Innovative solutions for CL have attracted increasing research attention worldwide. However,
the description of the global research network in the field of CL, research trends, and the discussion of
advanced theories and practices have not been systematically reviewed so far. Especially in the past
three years, there has been an explosive growth of relevant literature. In this paper, the method of
combining scientometric analysis and thematic discussion was adopted to systematically review 513
important works in the literature from 1993 to 2018, aiming to provide a holistic understanding of the
status in quo, trends and gaps of CL research, and to further analyze prominent problems. The study
has made statistical analyses of the publication year profile, journal allocation and research methods
of the included literature, and constructed four kinds of visualized bibliographic information timeline
maps for the authorship network, international collaboration network, keywords co-occurrence
network and research topic clustering. Then, the three themes summarized by clustering are discussed,
mainly focusing on CL strategies and policy, green supply chain management, planning methods, and
advanced concepts and practices. Finally, the research gaps framework and agenda were reported.
This study contributes to summarizing the research and development of city logistics on the whole,
and can also serve as an explorative manual to support sustainable urban freight activities and
innovative research.
Keywords: city logistics; sustainable transport; literature review; scientometrics analysis;

thematic analysis
1. Introduction
City logistics (CL) is a vital facilitator of the supply chain vitality, economic development and
business prospects, which ensures the continual and stable operation of large-scale freight transport
activities between suppliers and consumers in urban areas [1,2]. However, the rapid increase in demand
for urban distribution services caused by the development of e-commerce and the upgrading of urban
consumption capacity has placed a great burden to urban mobility (e.g., congestion, low accessibility
and inefficiency) [3], the environment (e.g., visual intrusion, greenhouse gas emission and resource
waste) [4], social welfare (e.g., noise, accident and public health), and governance (e.g., informal freight
sector, land scarcity and uncontrolled sprawl) [5]. More than 40% of atmospheric contaminations and
Sustainability 2019, 11, 2724; doi:10.3390/su11102724 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability

Sustainability 2019, 11, 2724 2 of 27
traffic hazards in city areas are caused by CL [6]. Obviously, the duality of CL has brought challenges
to human health and the quality of life [7].
Strong interactions between freight transport and sustainable urban development have aroused
widespread social awareness. Stakeholders have initiated numerous green logistics initiatives to reduce
the negative externalities and improve the sustainability of CL, such as eco-friendly transportation
technology, green supply chains, and resource reduction plan [5]. Decision makers are gradually
considering and implementing the future CL industry from the perspective of urban infrastructure
planning. At the same time, researchers are also enthusiastic about CL solutions under the requirements
of urban sustainability. In the past decade, the number of articles and the diversity of studies in this
field have increased significantly. Ogden (1992) [8] advocated the construction of CL theory and a
practice knowledge body, which should be a complex system integrating technology, engineering,
management, and policy, but it is still missing up to now [9]. Therefore, an exploratory scientometric
analysis of the existing CL literature is conducive to a holistic understanding of the current research
state and future directions.
Many review-based studies have been conducted to integrate the efforts and experience of CL
development. Lagorio et al. [10] investigated the general publication resource, bibliometric citation
network and main topics from 104 studies during 2000–2015. Dolati Neghabadi et al. [11] systematically
reviewed 370 CL literature items published from 2010 to 2016 and summarized research topics based on
keyword classification method. Allen et al. [12] reviewed 162 studies over the last 50 years and identified
12 different survey techniques that associated with the data collection issues in urban freight deliveries.
A review oriented to 150 proceedings of the International Conference on City Logistics from 2009 to
2013 was provided by Behrends [4], in which the author indicated that more research was necessary
to address the urban logistics in developing regions. Lindholm [13] critically reviewed 346 relevant
literatures and proposed an improved framework for the measurement, monitoring, and performance
indicators of urban freight transport from the perspective of the government. Existing reviews
have made a significant contribution to outlining the CL research history and expanding the future
horizon [9,14]; however, efforts to use objective and quantitative methods to map out the visualized
relationships among the researcher clusters, collaborative institutions and high-frequency keywords in
this field are limited.
To bridge the gaps, this study attempts to perform a systematic review aided by scientometrics
techniques to explore the status quo, trend, focus and gaps of CL research. The review covers
international peer-reviewed journals and major conference papers both published in English.
The motivation of this review is to identify and analyze three part of issues in CL research process:
(i) statistical characteristics of the scientific literature worldwide; (ii) key research themes and potential
solutions for improving the sustainability of CL, and (iii) research gaps and agenda.
The contributions of this study, which differ from previous works, are summarized as follows:
i Based on the great academic progress of CL research in recent years, a total of 513 literature
from multiple academic databases were retrieved, selected and described systematically, and the
development trend of CL research in the future was determined;
ii The method of scientometrics was used to realize the visualization of literature, and the quantified
bibliographical networks of authorship, co-citation, countries/institutions, and keywords
co-occurrence for CL literature were established. This research strategy avoids subjectivity and
arbitrariness of literature reviews, drawing more objective and effective conclusions;
iii The hotspots and academic frontiers of CL research were categorized and discussed in-depth.
The framework of knowledge gaps revealed in the existing literature and the corresponding
agenda were illuminated to enlighten future study.
In summary, the findings of this study contribute to obtaining accurate and complete information
about CL research over time and offering insights into current intellectual landscapes, research frontiers
and emerging trends.
2. Methodology
Systematic reviews are a fundamental but crucial approach for identifying, examining and
appraising meaningful findings and knowledge gaps across all the relevant literature on a specific set
of research topics [15]. Scientometric analysis is a quantitative tactic that could enhance the visual and
logical perception of systematic review outcomes by assessing, clustering and mapping the quality
and the relevance of articles through mathematical models and algorithms [16]. Figure 1 presents the
three-stage schematic process of this study. The research framework is organized as follows: In the
first stage, a comprehensive material retrieval was carried out, followed by setting criteria to select
literature, and finally data synthesis was conducted. After an overview of indexed documents, the
bibliographic network visualization and quantitative analysis were completed in Stage 2, where four
branches of scientometric experiments were designed and performed. In the third stage, three themes
were discussed separately based on the scientometric results. Finally, gaps and research findings were
summarized.Systematic
The fourreviews
branches
are of scientometric
a fundamental but experiments arefor
crucial approach as identifying,
follows: examining and
appraising meaningful findings and knowledge gaps across all the relevant literature on a specific
• Authorship collaboration
set of research experiments,
topics [15]. Scientometric usingiscollaborative
analysis network
a quantitative tactic to analyze
that could enhance(i)the
the relationship
visual
and co-authors,
among logical perception of systematic
(ii) the frequencyreview outcomes
of authors by assessing,
co-cited, in the clustering and mapping the
indexed documents.
quality and the relevance of articles through mathematical models and algorithms [16]. Figure 1
• Geographical experiments, to investigate the geo-distribution of cooperative research institutions
presents the three-stage schematic process of this study. The research framework is organized as
andfollows:
countries in first
In the the indexed documents. material retrieval was carried out, followed by setting
stage, a comprehensive
• Keywords
criteria toco-occurrence
select literature, experiments,
and finally datato analyze
synthesis the
was occurrence
conducted. Afterofancorrelated
overview ofkeywords
indexed in CL
documents,
literature and the
their bibliographic
concentrationnetwork visualization
by global and quantitative
researchers analysis
in different timewere
span.completed in
Stage 2, where four branches of scientometric experiments were designed and performed. In the third
• Thematic clustering experiments, to identify the mainstream themes in the CL field.
stage, three themes were discussed separately based on the scientometric results. Finally, gaps and
research findings were summarized. The four branches of scientometric experiments are as follows:
Review motivation
RM1: What is the academic status quo RM2: What are the key research themes RM3: What are the agenda and
and trend of the global city logistics and potential solutions to improve the gaps of current theoretical studies
researches in recent years ? sustainability of city logistics ? and practices ?
Quantitative statistics structure
Stage 1: Three-step data collection method

Comprehensive retrieval Literature selection Data synthesis & extraction
Academic databases Duplicates Filter using Research method categories

Endnote software Code indexed records into
Logical searching terms
Inclusion/exclusion criteria CiteSpace software
Publication chronicle Overview of studying documents Articles across journals
Bibliographic visualization network
Stage 2: Scientometrics analysis
Research theme Keywords co- Country & institution Co-author & Author
clustering occurrence analysis levels of collaboration co-citation analysis
Classification of key research topics
Stage 3: Thematic discussion

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
Decision support from a
The impact of CL on urban Logistics network design
sustainable perspective for
sustainable development and the and operational research
logistics strategies, policies
real-world initiatives
and management
Conclusive remarks Research gaps and agenda
Figure 1. Systematic protocol for reviewing city logistics research.

Figure 1. Systematic protocol for reviewing city logistics research.
• Authorship collaboration experiments, using collaborative network to analyze (i) the
relationship among co-authors, (ii) the frequency of authors co-cited, in the indexed documents.
• Geographical experiments, to investigate the geo-distribution of cooperative research
institutions and countries in the indexed documents.
• Keywords co-occurrence experiments, to analyze the occurrence of correlated keywords in CL
literature and their concentration by global researchers in different time span.
• Thematic clustering experiments, to identify the mainstream themes in the CL field.
The Java-based scientific data analysis software “CiteSpace” was adopted to investigate and
map the knowledge network of CL literature. According to Chen et al. [17], CiteSpace is an open
access application that developed for exploring the emerging trends and salient citation patterns
from various visualized attributes. This tool has been widely used in a variety of review studies
and has shown good capabilities [18,19]. Moreover, the software can provide users with a concise
understanding of the relationships between different literature by measuring parameters such as node
weight, linkage strength and centrality.
3. Data Collection
3.1. Material Comprehensive Retrieval

The target of the comprehensive retrieval was reviews and research articles published in academic
journals, excluding other types of publications, such as book chapters, editorials, letters, proceedings and
reports. Five online databases, Elsevier, Web of Science (WoS) core, Scopus, Engineering (EI) Village and
EBSCO Host were designated considering the wide coverage of urban transportation and logistics
publications. All the English-language papers during 1993–2018 were covered in the retrieval process.
However, the preliminary search results showed that the literature volume of “city logistics” under the
field of “Title/Abstract/Keywords” was very large (over 20,000 items), and most of the studies were
actually irrelevant to the given topic. Accordingly, the search scope was restricted to the “Title” field to
ensure that the obtained resources were relevant to the research target. Table 1 lists the detailed logical
statement and the number of papers in five databases. A total of 3321 initial records were collected
and imported into EndNote X8 software for filtering duplicates. Subsequently, 1379 duplicates were
removed and the remaining 1982 records were available for further assessment.
Table 1. Comprehensive retrieval outcomes.
EBSCO Initial Valid

Database WoS core EI Village Elsevier Scopus
Host Results Results
Number of papers 1396 175 302 758 690
TITLE ((“city” AND (“logistics” OR “freight”)) OR (“urban” AND
(“logistics” OR “freight” OR “goods” OR “delivery” OR “distribution”))
OR “last mile delivery” OR ((“urban” OR “city”) AND (“goods” OR 3321 1982
Logical statement
“freight”) AND (“transport” OR “transportation”)) OR (“sustainable” AND
“urban” AND (“logistics” OR “freight transport”)) OR (“urban logistics”
AND (“land use” OR “environment”))
3.2. Literature Selection

The retrieval results need to be further checked for compliance with the credibility requirements
of the systematic review [15], because the retrieval strategy adopted cannot guarantee the accuracy
strictly. For example, this article “Utilization of logistics regression for urban food consumption” is not
the desired result. To eliminate these discrepancies, the special inclusion/exclusion criteria as shown in
Table 2 were defined. The exclusion criteria followed the screening values proposed by Vilela et al. [20]
and Salim et al. [21] to comprehensively estimate the length of the article, journal of qualification,
article integrity, homogeneity and correlation. Accordingly, two peer-reviewed proceedings journals,
“Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences” and “Transportation Research Procedia”, included in Elsevier were
retained, in view of their high quality of papers. The inclusion criteria were derived from Dolati
Neghabadi et al. [11], whose work summarized the leading research topics of CL development over
the years. It is also important to check the recorded information one by one while reading the abstract
in parallel. Additionally, some researchers have proposed the sustainable developing goals for urban
transportation from the perspective of generic assessment of land use and environmental impact,
but they do not lay their emphasis on the CL domain. Eventually, 513 qualified titles were included
in our literature review portfolio. The acquisition method of all 513 documents are offered in the
Appendix A. The data collection results and erased contents are illustrated in Figure 2.
1. Review on urban freight transport 1. Less than 5 pages and grey literature
2. Freight and urban sustainability 2. Non-peer-reviewed journal
Repeated articles published in different journals
3. Advanced technology and concept 3. with same authorship (only the earliest one
Sustainability 2019, 11, 2724
is retained) 5 of 27
Articles do not relate to urban freight movement
Environmental, social and cost-benefit (e.g., inter-city transport, passenger traffic,
4. 4.
issuesTable 2. Pre-specified selection benchmarks.
water or gas distribution, urban planning,
waste and energy)
NO. Inclusion Criteria (CL Topics)
Planning and simulation of network NO. Exclusion
Sustainability not related Criteria
to urban (e.g.,
5. 5.
1. operation
Review on urban freight transport 1. enterprise supply
Less than chain,and
5 pages nationwide logistics)
grey literature
6. Intermodal application and practice 6. Lack of references, authorships or full text
2. Freight and urban sustainability 2. Non-peer-reviewed journal
7. Policy making and developing strategy
8. Supply chain design and management Repeated articles published in different
3. Advanced technology and concept 3. journals with same authorship (only the earliest
9. System evaluation and forecast
one is retained)
10. Risk and efficiency
Articles do not relate to urban freight
Environmental, social and cost-benefit movement (e.g., inter-city transport, passenger
4. 4.
issues traffic, water or gas distribution, urban
3.3. Data Synthesis And Extraction planning, waste and energy)
Planning and simulation of network Sustainability not related to urban (e.g.,
5.Data synthesis serves to summarize the methods
5. applied in the research of CL; it is crucial to the
operation enterprise supply chain, nationwide logistics)
integrity of a systematic review. The classification of research methods cannot be completed by
6. Intermodal
scientometrics. application
Therefore, and to
according practice 6. [10], the
Lagorio et al. Lackresearch
of references, authorships
methods or full into
are divided text six
categories:
7. “Review”,
Policy making and“Qualitative and conceptual paper”, “Modelling and simulation”,
developing strategy
“Questionnaire
8. Supplysurvey”, “Empirical
chain design paper”, and “Hybrid techniques”. Smart group function of
and management
Endnote
9.
was utilized to sort the indexed
System evaluation and forecast
records automatically by reviewing the Title, Abstract, and
Keywords of each document. At last, 476 of 513 articles were identified and assigned to the
10. Risk and efficiency
appropriate categories (see Table 3). The result shows that modelling and simulation is the most
applied, accounting for 36%. followed by qualitative and conceptual studies, accounting for 23%.
Step1: Comprehensive Step2: Records Step3: Duplicates Step4: literature

- 1,379 - 1,429
retrieval acquisition removal selection
Databases 1,429 titles excluded:

-112 urban air quality - 41 public service - 163 environmental governance
Elsevier
3,321 titles - 42 health care delivery - 28 public habitat & occupation - 55 passenger traffic
- 56 logistic regression - 7 agricultural distribution - 9 Inner-enterprise logistics
302 titles - 119 energy & fuels - 174 water & gas transmission - 58 power supply chain
- 11 hazard exposure - 1 robots - 3 HIV - 35 rural & urban plan - 12 GPS
EI Village Export digital data
- 29 generic assessment of logistics land - 16 drug & disorder - 177 others
use and environment - 40 trunk logistics - 127 short paper
175 titles
with key information. - 91 journal unqualified
(e.g. title, abstract,

1,942 titles - 18 full-text unavailable
EBSCO Host - 6 repeated authorship
690 titles keywords, authorship, Import data to Endnote

organizations and X8 to eliminate the
513 titles
Scopus
references) overlap of databases. Refine the valid titles
758 titles
1,287 duplicates titles in accordance with
WOS core are removed inclusion/exclusion

1,396 titles criteria
Figure
Figure 2.
2. Flowchart
Flowchart of
of data
data collection.
collection.
3.3. Data Synthesis And Extraction

Data synthesis serves to summarize the methods applied in the research of CL; it is crucial to
the integrity of a systematic review. The classification of research methods cannot be completed
by scientometrics. Therefore, according to Lagorio et al. [10], the research methods are divided
into six categories: “Review”, “Qualitative and conceptual paper”, “Modelling and simulation”,
“Questionnaire survey”, “Empirical paper”, and “Hybrid techniques”. Smart group function of Endnote
was utilized to sort the indexed records automatically by reviewing the Title, Abstract, and Keywords
of each document. At last, 476 of 513 articles were identified and assigned to the appropriate categories
(see Table 3). The result shows that modelling and simulation is the most applied, accounting for 36%.
followed by qualitative and conceptual studies, accounting for 23%.
Then, the authors, journal name, institution, title, abstract, keywords, citation, reference and other
digital statistical
Then, data of each
the authors, article
journal wereinstitution,
name, organized and
title,compiled
abstract,into CiteSpace
keywords, 5.3 R6 (64
citation, bit) version
reference and
for thedigital
other next round of bibliographic
statistical data of eachanalysis. Theorganized
article were full-text ofand
articles were evaluated
compiled in advance
into CiteSpace 5.3 R6to make
(64 bit)
sure the for
version correctness
the nextofround
software
of coding.
bibliographic analysis. The full-text of articles were evaluated in
advance to make sure the correctness of software coding.
Table 3. Bibliometrics classified by research methodology.
Table 3. Bibliometrics classified by research methodology.
Research Methodology Description Count
Research methodology
Review Description
A study that reviews and analyses the progress of current research 42Count
Review
Qualitative and conceptual AAstudy that reviews and analyses the progress of current research
study that focuses on qualitative analysis or conceptual framework 111 42
Qualitative and conceptual A study that focuses on qualitative analysis or conceptual framework 111
Modelling and simulation A study that uses a model from mathematical functions for 174
Modelling and simulation A study that uses a model from mathematical
decision-making purposes functions for decision- 174
making purposes
Questionnaire survey A research instrument consisting of a series of questions (or other types of 17
Questionnaire survey A research
prompts)instrument consisting
for the purpose of a series
of gathering of questions
information from(or other types of
respondents. 17
prompts) for the purpose of gathering information from respondents.
Empirical research A study of gaining solution proposal by means of direct and indirect case 49
Empirical research A study of gaining solution proposal by means of direct and indirect case 49
study or experience.
study or experience.
Hybrid techniques A study that use a mixture of two or more methods described above 83
Hybrid techniques A study that use a mixture of two or more methods described above 83
3.4. Overview
3.4. Overview of
of Selected
Selected Literature
Literature
A year
A year profile
profileofofthe selected
the papers
selected from
papers 19931993
from to 2018 is shown
to 2018 in Figure
is shown 3. Since3.2010,
in Figure Sincethe2010,
number
the
of published papers has increased significantly year by year, and the total number
number of published papers has increased significantly year by year, and the total number has has accounted for
more than 90%
accounted (462 out
for more thanof90%
513).(462
Notably,
out of223 papers
513). (44%223
Notably, of all) have(44%
papers beenofpublished
all) have in thepublished
been past three
years, with the highest proportion in 2018 (82 titles). The overall trend indicates that the planning
in the past three years, with the highest proportion in 2018 (82 titles). The overall trend indicates that and
management of urban-level freight transport has become a focus in the field of research
the planning and management of urban-level freight transport has become a focus in the field of and continues
to receiveand
research increasing
continuesattention.
to receive increasing attention.
Distribution of
Figure 3. Distribution of the
the indexed
indexed papers
papers published
published from 1993 to 2018.
Table 44 lists
Table lists the
the total
total 17
17 journals
journals covering
covering 77 or
or more
more articles
articles with
with highlighting
highlighting their
their impact
impact factor
factor
(IF) and H-index. Therein, two conference-oriented journals contributed to 170 articles,
(IF) and H-index. Therein, two conference-oriented journals contributed to 170 articles, accounting accounting for
33.1%
for of all.ofInall.
33.1% termsIn of 343 journal
terms journal Transportation
of 343 articles, Research Part
articles, Transportation E: Logistics
Research PartandE: Transportation
Logistics and
Review published 15 articles (2.9%) on CL, ranking first, followed by Transportation
Transportation Review published 15 articles (2.9%) on CL, ranking first, followed by Transportation Research Part A:
Policy and Practice (14 articles) and Transport Policy (14 articles). With an overview of all
Research Part A: Policy and Practice (14 articles) and Transport Policy (14 articles). With an overview journal titles,
of
Europe
all is the
journal main
titles, battleground
Europe for battleground
is the main the study of CL.
for the study of CL.
Table 4. Rank of journals in CL research productivity.
Source publication Host country Count Percentage Impact factor H-index

Regular Journal 343 66.9%
Transportation Research Part E: Logistics
UK 15 2.9% 3.289 85
and Transportation Review
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and
UK 14 2.7% 3.026 101
Practice
Table 4. Rank of journals in CL research productivity.
Source Publication Host Country Count Percentage Impact Factor H-Index

Regular Journal 343 66.9%
Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and
UK 15 2.9% 3.289 85
Transportation Review
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and
UK 14 2.7% 3.026 101
Practice
Transport Policy UK 14 2.7% 2.512 70
Journal of Transport Geography UK 13 2.5% 2.699 75
Research in Transportation Business &
Netherlands 13 2.5% NA 16
Management
Journal of the Transportation Research Board
USA 13 2.5% 0.695 86
(Transportation Research Record)
European Transport - Trasporti Europei Italy 12 2.3% NA 13
European Journal of Operational Research Netherlands 11 2.1% 3.428 211
Transport Reviews UK 10 1.9% 4.647 59
International Journal of Logistics
UK 10 1.9% 1.776 85
Management
Research in Transportation Economics UK 9 1.8% 0.992 30
Case Studies on Transport Policy Netherlands 9 1.8% NA 8
Transportation Science USA 8 1.6% 3.275 93
Transportation Research Part D: Transport
UK 8 1.6% 3.445 74
and Environment
Sustainability Switzerland 7 1.4% 2.075 42
Unlisted journals (<7 titles) 177 34.5%
Conference-oriented Journal 170 33.1%
Transportation Research Procedia Netherlands 89 17.3% NA 11
Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences UK 81 15.8% NA 34
The journals’ IF was obtained from Journal Citation Reports (2017), H-index was from Scimago Journal & Country Rank.
NA: not available.
Citation statistics were obtained from the Google Scholar database. Table 5 lists the top 10
most influential research articles in the field of CL. The three most cited articles are Dablanc [22],
Crainic et al. [23] and Crainic et al. [1], with 448, 404 and 395, respectively.
Table 5. Top 10 most cited documents in Google Scholar.
Document Year Journal Count Topic Related to CL

Dablanc [22] 2007 Transportation Research Part A 448 Policy & regulations
Crainic et al. [23] 2009 Transportation Science 404 Service network design
Crainic et al. [1] 2004 Transportation Research Part A 395 System integration
Muñuzuri et al. [24] 2005 Cities 321 Solution & initiative
Anderson et al. [3] 2005 Journal of Transport Geography 296 Policy strategy
Krajewska et al. [25] 2008 Journal of the Operational Research Society 276 Business cooperation
Taniguchi and Van Der 2000 Transport Reviews 229 Traffic simulation
Heijden [26]
Ambrosini and Routhier [27] 2004 Transport Reviews 217 ITS
Hemmelmayr et al. [28] 2012 Computers & Operations Research 213 Vehicle routing problem
Taniguchi and Shimamoto [29] 2004 Transportation Research Part C 210 ITS
4. Scientometric Analysis
CiteSpace software can construct a visual network based on bibliographic data information for
scientometrics analysis. In this visual network, a node represented a specific bibliographic information
type, such as author, institution, country, keyword or reference, etc., while link described the co-citation
or collaboration between these nodes. The two options in CiteSpace, top 50 levels of node values and
minimum spanning tree optimization, are the commonly used parameter presetting strategy for network
generation. This strategy can get a reasonable number of nodes and can cut unnecessary branches in the
network [18]. The top 50 levels of node values are selected from biennial slices used for CiteSpace analysis.
Two metrics, the mean silhouette (S) and the modularity (Q) are used to reveal the “overall structural
properties” of the network. The higher S value indicates a better matching degree between this node
and its generic clustering while a higher Q value denotes a higher dispersion degree of the merged
network [19]. Then, three experiments were carried out based on the network generation method.
4.1. Authorship Collaboration Experiments

According to the 513 bibliographic authorship, an initial co-author network with 1139 nodes
and 1775 links was generated. The modularity and mean silhouette values of the network were
Q = 0.981 and S = 0.889, respectively. In order to make the network more compact to display valuable
information, the node position was adjusted and the minor nodes with less than 3 publications were
weakened. As shown in Figure 4, the large nodes in the network represent authors who publish
more. Links in different colors, such as blue, green, yellow and orange, links indicate the authors’
collaboration relationship in different years of publication (from 1993 to 2018). Table 6 lists the active
authors who have the contributed to CL research. Antonio Comi (University of Rome Tor Vergata),
Michael Browne (University of Westminster) and Eiichi Taniguchi (Kyoto University) are the top three
prolific authors. Meanwhile, three closed-loop research communities can be identified by taking the
above 3 authors as the central nodes. For example, the node named Antonio Comi covers Agostino
Nuzzolo, Francesco Russo and José Holguin-Veras, etc. Similarly, the research community, with Michael
Browne and Julian Allen working at the same institution at its core, covered the likes of Hans Quak, J.
H.R. Van Duin and Cathy Macharis.
According to graph theory, Freeman’s betweenness centrality [30] is an effective indicator to
evaluate the importance of nodes in the network, and it has been widely applied in the previous
scientometrics review [18,19]. The betweenness centrality can be calculated via formula Equation (1),
where µmk is the sum of shortest paths from node m to node k; and µmk (i) is the number of those
paths that pass through node i. The node centrality score can be detected by the color of the rim
in CiteSpace [18]. Nodes with purple rim have higher scores, indicating important relationships
among large clusters they link. In Figure 4, the authors with purple rim include Michael Browne
(centrality = 0.14), Hans Quak (centrality = 0.08), Christian Ambrosini (centrality = 0.03) and Laetitia
Dablanc (0.02). These nodes show frequent collaboration with authors from different clusters.
X µ (i)
mk
Centrality ω(nodei ) = ·(1) (1)
µmk
m,i,k
The author co-citation analysis aims to find out the evolution of the collaborative relationship
between academic communities or individuals who have made great contributions to CL research.
After processing 9406 references from 513 publications, a network consisting of 1309 nodes and
3215 links (as shown in Figure 5) was constructed. The modularity of the network is Q = 0.592 and the
mean silhouette is S = 0.588. The highest cited author is Eiichi Taniguchi (Freq. = 93, Japan), followed by
Laetitia Dablanc (Freq. = 85, France), Hans Quak (Freq. = 68, Netherlands), Michael Browne (Freq. = 65,
UK), Teodor G. Crainic (Freq. = 64, USA), Francesco Russo (Freq. = 49, Italy) and Maria E. Lindholm
(Freq. = 48, Sweden). This shows that their work has been widely recognized and plays a fundamental
role in promoting the CL research. Similarly, nodes with purple rims represent authors with high
centrality metric. Eiichi Taniguchi (centrality = 0.25), Teodor G. Crainic (centrality = 0.20) and Amanda
Stathopoulos (centrality = 0.17) ranked top three. Their work has served as a bridge between different
authors and communities.
Table 6. Top 10 most productive authors.
Scholar Affiliation Country Count Percentage

Antonio Comi University of Rome Tor Vergata Italy 25 4.9%
Michael Browne University of Westminster UK 20 3.9%
Eiichi Taniguchi Kyoto University Japan 17 3.3%
Edoardo Marcucci University of Roma Tre Italy 15 2.9%
Agostino Nuzzolo University of Rome Tor Vergata Italy 14 2.7%
Julian Allen University of Westminster UK 12 2.3%
Valerio Gatta University of Roma Tre Italy 12 2.3%
Cathy Macharis Vrije University Brussel Belgium 11 2.1%
Russell G. Thompson Monash University Australia 10 1.9%
Laetitia Dablanc University of Paris France 10 1.9%
Figure 4.4.Co-author
Figure network.
Co-author network.
The author co-citation analysis aims to find out the evolution of the collaborative relationship
between academic communities or individuals who have made great contributions to CL research.
After processing 9406 references from 513 publications, a network consisting of 1309 nodes and 3215
links (as shown in Figure 5) was constructed. The modularity of the network is Q = 0.592 and the
mean silhouette is S = 0.588. The highest cited author is Eiichi Taniguchi (Freq. = 93, Japan), followed
by Laetitia Dablanc (Freq. =8 5, France), Hans Quak (Freq. = 68, Netherlands), Michael Browne (Freq.
= 65, UK), Teodor G. Crainic (Freq. = 64, USA), Francesco Russo (Freq. = 49, Italy) and Maria E.
Lindholm (Freq. = 48, Sweden). This shows that their work has been widely recognized and plays a
fundamental role in promoting the CL research. Similarly, nodes with purple rims represent authors
with high centrality metric. Eiichi Taniguchi (centrality = 0.25), Teodor G. Crainic (centrality = 0.20)
and Amanda Stathopoulos (centrality = 0.17) ranked top three. Their work has served as a bridge
between different authors and communities.
Figure 5. Author co-citation network.

Figure 5. Author co-citation network.
4.2. Geographical Experiments

Geospatial experiment is conducted to evaluate the collaborative level among countries, regions
and institutions in CL research. The location of one literature in the CiteSpace network is generated
by the institution address of the corresponding author [31]. In the same way, a visual network (as
4.2. Geographical Experiments

Geospatial experiment is conducted to evaluate the collaborative level among countries,
regions and institutions in CL research. The location of one literature in the CiteSpace network
is generated by the institution address of the corresponding author [31]. In the same way, a visual
network (as shown in Figure 6) representing “country” category contains 74 nodes and 150 links,
with the network parameter Q = 0.4387 and S = 0.3133. A total of 25 active countries have published
more than 5 articles. USA (82 articles, 611 citations) and Italy (76 articles, 592 citations) ranked top
two for number of publications and total citations, followed by UK (42 articles), France (40 articles),
China (34 articles), Netherlands (33 articles) and Germany (30 articles). Swedish scholars held the
highest average citation rate (25.65 times per article), followed by Netherlands (17.42 times) and USA
(10.19 times). Countries such as USA (centrality = 0.74), Italy (centrality = 0.25), France (centrality = 0.19),
Germany (centrality = 0.19), UK (centrality = 0.13), Spain (centrality = 0.11) and Canada (centrality = 0.10)
were highlighted by purple rims (see, Figure 6). They are leading international collaboration in
CL research.
Network of
Figure 6. Network of countries.
countries.
Another indicator,
Another indicator, burst
burststrength
strength(BS),
(BS),which
whichcan canbebe calculated
calculated viavia
thethe algorithm
algorithm introduced
introduced by
by Kleinberg
Kleinberg [32],[32],
waswas embedded
embedded to reflect
to reflect the dynamic
the dynamic growthgrowth of a citation
of a citation over aover a short
short periodperiod of
of time.
time. Nodes with extraordinary citation burst strength, including Australia (BS
Nodes with extraordinary citation burst strength, including Australia (BS = 4.34, 2003 to 2011), China = 4.34, 2003 to 2011),
China
(BS (BS =
= 4.02, 4.02,
2011 to2011 to Japan
2013), 2013), (BS
Japan (BS =2005
= 3.01, 3.01,to2005 to 2009),
2009), UK (BSUK (BS =2011
= 2.39, 2.39,to2011 to and
2014) 2014)USA
and(BSUSA =
(BS =2000
1.68, 1.68, to
2000 to 2011),
2011), showshow the article
the article whichwhich
hashas received
received thethe
mostmost attention
attention duringa acertain
during certainperiod.
period.
Note that
Note that in
in recent
recentyears
years(2015
(2015toto2018),
2018),the number
the number of of
published
publishedarticles hashas
articles increased greatly,
increased but that
greatly, but
therethere
that was no wascitation burst. This
no citation phenomenon
burst. indicatesindicates
This phenomenon that the globalization trend of CLtrend
that the globalization research
of has
CL
made it difficult for a single country to obtain a high citation in a short
research has made it difficult for a single country to obtain a high citation in a short time. time.
The contribution
The contribution of of institutions
institutionswas wasalso
alsoidentified.
identified.Specifically,
Specifically,the
theco-authorship
co-authorship information
information of
allall
of indexed
indexed digital records
digital is analyzed
records is analyzedthrough CiteSpace
through to generate
CiteSpace Keyhole
to generate Markup
Keyhole Language
Markup (KML)
Language
(KML) files. These files were then imported into Google Earth software for real-world visualization.7
files. These files were then imported into Google Earth software for real-world visualization. Figure
illustrates
Figure the geographical
7 illustrates distribution
the geographical of international
distribution collaboration
of international on CL research
collaboration at the
on CL institutional
research at the
institutional level in the three high-density research regions of Europe, North America (NA) and
Asia. Red nodes and cyan nodes represent the time span of literature publication before and after
2015, respectively. The connections between two nodes indicate the strength of the partnership. The
graph shows the strong international cooperative research relationship between Europe and NA,
with 54 articles published together, while Europe-Asia cooperation has published 23 papers, and NA-
level in the three high-density research regions of Europe, North America (NA) and Asia. Red nodes
and cyan nodes represent the time span of literature publication before and after 2015, respectively.
The connections between two nodes indicate the strength of the partnership. The graph shows
the strong international cooperative research relationship between Europe and NA, with 54 articles
published together, while Europe-Asia cooperation has published 23 papers, and NA-Asia cooperation
has published 28 papers. In addition, University of Rome Tor Vergata (33 articles), Delft University
of Technology (28 articles), University of Westminster (22 articles), Kyoto University (17 articles),
Chalmers University of Technology (16 articles), University of Texas at Austin (10 articles) and other
institutions are very active in the field of CL.
Figure 7. Geospatial distribution of published research documents

documents in Asia
Asia (a), North America
America (b) and
(c).
Europe (c).
4.3. Keywords Co-Occurrence Experiments

A keyword is a noun or phrase that not only reflects the meaning or core content of a literature,
but also reveals the long-term development of a specific research field [33]. Therefore, the keywords
co-occurrence experiments in the literature can dig out the current research hotspots of CL. The
keywords analyzed in CiteSpace include two sources: (i) original keywords offered by authors in
their articles, and (ii) extended keywords based on the subject classification of a journal or database.
In the visualization process, terms with similar meanings were merged, such as “transportation” and
4.3. Keywords Co-Occurrence Experiments

A keyword is a noun or phrase that not only reflects the meaning or core content of a literature,
but also reveals the long-term development of a specific research field [33]. Therefore, the keywords
co-occurrence experiments in the literature can dig out the current research hotspots of CL. The keywords
analyzed in CiteSpace include two sources: (i) original keywords offered by authors in their articles, and
(ii) extended keywords based on the subject classification of a journal or database. In the visualization
process, terms with similar meanings were merged, such as “transportation” and “transport”, “urban”
and “city”. Accordingly, a chronological network consisting of 659 nodes and 1814 links reflecting the
co-occurred keywords was built, as shown in Figure 8. The value of modularity and mean Silhouette
resulted in Q = 0.298 and S = 0.501, respectively. Different colored annular rings on the nodes symbolize
the time when the keywords appeared, and the link between the two nodes indicates that the two
keywords appeared in the same document.
Figure 8. Network of co-occurring keywords.

Figure 8. Network of co-occurring keywords.
The size of the node indicates the occurring frequency of the keyword. The top 10 high-frequency
The size of the node indicates the occurring frequency of the keyword. The top 10 high-
keywords are “urban freight transport” (Freq. = 241), “city logistics” (Freq. = 218), “sustainability”
frequency keywords are “urban freight transport” (Freq. = 241), “city logistics” (Freq. = 218),
(Freq. = 60), “transportation policy” (Freq. = 56), “urban area” (Freq. = 43), “traffic congestion”
“sustainability” (Freq. = 60), “transportation policy” (Freq. = 56), “urban area” (Freq. = 43), “traffic
(Freq. = 42), “air quality” (Freq. = 33), “last mile delivery” (Freq. = 31), “supply chain management”
congestion” (Freq. = 42), “air quality” (Freq. = 33), “last mile delivery” (Freq. = 31), “supply chain
(Freq. = 30) and “model” (Freq. = 28). Additionally, the six nodes that scored high in
management” (Freq. = 30) and “model” (Freq. = 28). Additionally, the six nodes that scored high in
centrality for the purple rim are “urban freight transport” (centrality = 0.25), “transportation
centrality for the purple rim are “urban freight transport” (centrality = 0.25), “transportation policy”
policy” (centrality = 0.21), “sustainability” (centrality = 0.13), “traffic congestion” (centrality = 0.13),
(centrality = 0.21), “sustainability” (centrality = 0.13), “traffic congestion” (centrality = 0.13),
“greenhouse gas” (centrality = 0.13) and “vehicle routing problem” (centrality = 0.12). These keywords
“greenhouse gas” (centrality = 0.13) and “vehicle routing problem” (centrality = 0.12). These
play a crucial role in forming CL research topics and connecting major branches of knowledge.
keywords play a crucial role in forming CL research topics and connecting major branches of
Table 7 listed the keywords with high burst strength and their corresponding burst durations.
knowledge.
Among them, the use of “battery electric vehicle” [34], “underground logistics system” [35],
Table 7 listed the keywords with high burst strength and their corresponding burst durations.
“crowd logistics” [36] and “collaborative transport” [37] and other new technologies or business
Among them, the use of “battery electric vehicle” [34], “underground logistics system” [35], “crowd
models to explore and solve the development of urban logistics problems has received great attention.
logistics” [36] and “collaborative transport” [37] and other new technologies or business models to
explore and solve the development of urban logistics problems has received great attention.
Table 7. Citation burst of keywords.
No. Keywords Burst strength (BS) Duration

1 city logistics 7.28 2008–2014
2 cost benefit analysis 3.86 2010–2015
Table 7. Citation burst of keywords.
No. Keywords Burst Strength (BS) Duration

1 city logistics 7.28 2008–2014
2 cost benefit analysis 3.86 2010–2015
3 battery electric vehicle 3.15 2015–2017
4 agent based model 2.81 2013–2014
5 mixed integer program 2.53 2013–2016
6 smart city 2.42 2014–2018
7 traffic congestion 2.41 2010–2013
8 underground logistics system 2.27 2016–2018
9 customer satisfaction 2.25 2013–2014
10 crowd logistics 2.21 2015–2018
11 collaborative transport 2.19 2015–2018
12 off hour delivery 2.04 2013–2016
Clustering analysis of keywords co-occurrence results based on Log-Likelihood ratio (LLR) metric
was adopted to identify the meaningful CL research topics. Clustering analysis is an exploratory
data mining technique
Clustering thatofaims
analysis to depict
keywords patternsresults
co-occurrence by grouping sources that share
based on Log-Likelihood similar words or
ratio (LLR)
attribute values
metric was [38].
adoptedFigure 9 presents
to identify the timeline
the meaningful CLmap of 22topics.
research noticeable clusters
Clustering automatically
analysis is an output
by CiteSpace.
exploratoryThedatacross
miningpoints on the
technique thattimeline represent
aims to depict patternsthe
by earliest
groupingyear in that
sources whichsharethe literature review
similar
words
portfolio or attribute
introduces values [38].From
a keyword. Figure2016
9 presents
to 2018,thefewtimeline map of 22 were
new keywords noticeable clustersand majority
proposed,
automatically output by CiteSpace. The cross points on the timeline represent the earliest year in
of them appeared in the literature during 2010–2014. Table 8 illustrated the detailed classification
which the literature review portfolio introduces a keyword. From 2016 to 2018, few new keywords
results, where
were the clustering
proposed, and majoritysize represents
of them appeared inthethenumber
literatureof discrete
during keywords
2010–2014. Table 8 included.
illustrated Cluster # 0
“multi-criteria
the detaileddecision” has 56
classification members,
results, where which is the largest,
the clustering while cluster
size represents # 17 “integrated
the number of discrete short-term
keywords
planning”, included.
cluster # 19Cluster # 0 “multi-criteria
“refunding strategy”decision” has 56 #members,
and cluster which is the largest,modeling”
20 “knowledge-based while are the
cluster
smallest, # 17only
with “integrated
3 members short-term planning”, cluster # 19 “refunding strategy” and cluster # 20
respectively.
“knowledge-based modeling” are the smallest, with only 3 members respectively.
Figure 9. Timeline clustering map of research themes in CL field.

Figure 9. Timeline clustering map of research themes in CL field.
Table 8. Categories of CL keyword clusters (1993-2018).
Topic Group Cluster ID Size Cluster Label (LLR) Time Span

#0 56 multi-criteria decision 1993–2018
#2 33 carrier-receiver policies 2000–2017
#3 17 evaluation system 2007–2018
Group 1 # 11 4 urban freight partnership 2013–2013
# 12 7 data chain management 2009–2014
# 19 3 refunding strategy 2012–2013
# 20 3 knowledge-based modeling 2012–2012
#1 51 European perspective 1993–2018
#4 22 activities 2003–2018
#7 11 real-life application 2000–2013
# 14 4 sustainable freight service 2014–2015
Group 2 # 18 5 e-commerce 2008–2016
#5 10 electrifying light commercial vehicle 1993–2015
#9 6 urban transshipment hub 2011–2013
# 13 4 tram 2007–2013
# 21 5 intelligent transportation system 2004–2014
#6 12 hybrid algorithm 1993–2014
#8 6 location selection 2011–2013
# 10 6 distribution routing optimizing 2010–2012
Group 3
# 15 4 heuristics 2007–2015
# 16 6 load factor 2012–2014
# 17 3 integrated short-term planning 2009–2009
In order to facilitate the thematic discussions on research priorities, the 22 clusters were manually
classified into three groups, namely “decision support from a sustainable perspective for logistics
strategies, policies and management (G1)”, “the impact of CL on urban sustainable development
and the real-world initiatives (G2)” and “logistics network design and operational research (G3)”,
ignoring the small differences among clusters.
5. Thematic Discussion
5.1. Decision Support from a Sustainable Perspective for Logistics Strategies, Policies and Management (G1)
G1 focuses on two basic topics in the field of CL, namely, the costs and efficiency of CL supply
chain at industrial level, and the CL strategy and policy research at the governmental level. For the
former research, here are some representative works. A questionnaire-based economic analysis was
designed by Kim and Sohn [39] to evaluate the expected costs and profits of operating radio frequency
identification (RFID) system in the transportation process from suppliers to customers. Hu and Sun [40]
proposed an operational research method that incorporated experienced schedulers’ knowledge
to support the real-time disruption management of CL supply chain. The quantitative indicators
considering time window and service quality were proposed by Deflorio et al. [41] for predicting
the cost of end-to-customer supply chain. Sakai et al. [42] investigated the impact of decentralized
migration and spatial distribution of CL facilities on the supply chain efficiency. In particular,
logistics enterprise alliance strategy is an important research direction to reduce supply chain cost.
Hensher and Puckett [43] discussed the interaction between congestion charging regime and cost
sharing benefits in CL supply chain. Vanovermeire and Sorensen [44] has proposed the profit allocation
mechanism among partners under the horizontally cooperative mode, which indicated that logistics
efficiency and cost benefits increased with the measure of synchronized order consolidation. A survey
conducted by Lin et al. [45] revealed that urban delivery consolidation strategy was economically and
environmentally attractive, when the economy of scale or high customer density was ensured. For more
knowledge on collaborative management of CL supply chain, readers may review [25,46]. Additionally,
the information retrieval tactics such as data mining [47], case base reasoning [48], GPS [49], GIS [50],
demand forecasting [51], and cloud computing [52] has also popularized in the CL supply chain research.
For the latter, more studies link urban logistics with urban sustainable development. CL is
considered as one of the main reasons for the unsustainability of road traffic [53]. The current decision
support for improving CL sustainability is mainly from two aspects. One is to upgrade the efficiency
and external performance of freight transportation via technological measures (e.g., new energy
vehicles [34] and environmental engineering [10]). The other one is to coordinate and manage the
rapid growing CL activities through various regulations, such as the policy of setting low emission
zones, congestion charging, truck loading, access timetable and so on [3]. However, the fact is that
the local authorities usually choose to sacrifice freight transport efficiency to give priority to the
development of other forms of transportation [3]. Practice and experience from global economy,
especially European countries, showed that the strict regulation upon CL activities might not be
beneficial to the development of integrated urban transportation [54,55]. On the contrary, it greatly
limits the potential of logistics market [35] and negatively affects delivery punctuality [56].
At the level of macroscopic development strategy, there is a consensus that urban freight planning
is far less important than mobility of people or public transport [57,58]. The deep motivation therein
is long being a hotspot. Anderson et al. [3] stated that stakeholders’ behaviors would impact CL
industries in different ways, and the differences in logistics modes and attributes should be considered.
Dablanc [22] indicated that CL management should adopt a mixture of negotiated agreements,
public private partnerships and solid governing laws to meet the heterogeneity existing in various
logistics market. According to Quak and De Koster [7], both delivery time window and vehicle
restrictive measures aiming at enhancing social sustainability would significantly increase the retailers’
costs. Through the comparative study of CL policies in different countries, Ballantyne et al. [56] found
that most local authorities solely treated urban goods movement as a commercial issue occurred with
the logistics industry, but neglected the exogenous impacts such as culture and tradition. The actual
performance of freight policy is determined by the external factors, local ecosystem and their dynamic
interaction [59]. Le Pira et al. [60] pointed out that few stakeholders were willing to accept any policy
that implied a substantial increase in executive costs.
Many scholars believe that the sustainable development of CL should be fully considered in
the process of urban spatial exploitation [61], infrastructure construction [62], and even the strategic
planning of urbanization [22]. Meanwhile, the creation of logistics market commitment was thought
to be a mutual responsibility of the public sector and private sector [63]. However, an important
issue is that the major stakeholders, especially freight carriers and shippers were rarely able to
participate in the integrated urban planning protocol [64]. Lack of interaction among stakeholders [65],
inadequate supply capacity of logistics services [22], and imperfect decision-making knowledge [66]
are considered as the Achilles’ heel of effective planning and regulation of road-based urban logistics.
5.2. The Impact of CL on Urban Sustainable Development and the Real-World Initiatives (G2)
Worldwide efforts and initiatives to reduce the negative externalities of CL and to improve the
urban environment and livability are gaining momentum [67]. As shown in Figure 10, G2 covers a total
of 162 literatures, accounting for 31.6% of the portfolio, primarily aiming to analyze the environmental
impact, land use and sustainability issues of case-based CL activities. Woudsma et al. [68] pointed out
that the logistics land use pattern was dynamically affected by the accessibility of urban traffic and
varied with the change of the location of the urban gateway. The managerial performance of urban road
freight transport operations is deeply affected by geographical location, land use patterns and trade
imbalances [12]. Behrends [69] constructed a road-rail multimodal transport model from the urban
dimension to explore the freight potential and environmental benefits. Morana and Gonzalez-Feliu [70]
constructed an indicator framework for economic, environmental and social evaluation of sustainable
CL supply chain management through expert evaluation.
environmental
Sustainability and
2019, 11, social
2724 evaluation of sustainable CL supply chain management through expert
16 of 27
evaluation.
Crowdsourcing logistics
Environmental
Self-service container
impact
Automated cargo tricycle or robot
Challenge of
58 Promotion of electric vehicle
Vehicle routing management
the last mile
Horizontal pick-up and delivery delivery Energy reduction plan
Land use Green logistics
Emission control
measures
Underground logistics system

33 Nighttime or off-peak hour delivery
Advanced
technology
UDC/UCC terminal & concept 71
Shared use of public transport
infrastructures
Sustainability
Intelligent transport system
Figure
Figure 10.
10. Research
Research emphasis
emphasis of
of sustainable
sustainable urban
urban freight
freight transport.
transport.
The low
lowefficiency
efficiency of CL is theissource
of CL of energy
the source of consumption and air pollution
energy consumption and air[71]. Coulombel
pollution [71].
et al. [72] developed a modeling chain combining demand process, multi-level
Coulombel et al. [72] developed a modeling chain combining demand process, multi-level traffic traffic assignment and
emission
assignment scheme to investigate
and emission schemethe pollution of
to investigate theurban roadoffreight
pollution urbanin Paris.
road They
freight in found that lorries
Paris. They found
accounted
that lorries for 8 percent
accounted forof8 total urban
percent mileage
of total urbanbut generated
mileage 36 percent36ofpercent
but generated additional social cost
of additional (up
social
cost (up to 2.1 billion € per year). Restrictive freight access and load limitation policies were also
to 2.1 billion € per year). Restrictive freight access and load limitation policies were also considered
to be major to
considered factors in increasing
be major factors inCL emissions
increasing CL[73].
emissions [73].
Another emerging trend is the use of a variety variety ofof simulation-based
simulation-based modeling and evaluation
methods to study the G2 topic, such as system dynamic [74], agent-based modeling [75], impact predicting
model [2], traffic microsimulation [76], multi-criteria group decision-making [77,78], fuzzy analytic hierarchy
process [79], etc.
In order
order to tomap
mapan anintegrated
integratedknowledge
knowledge structure
structure forfor
sustainable urban
sustainable freight
urban transport,
freight the
transport,
theoretical
the theoreticalemphasis
emphasis andand research
research topic of of
topic G2G2documents
documentswere werefurther
furtherexplored.
explored. As As depicted
depicted in
Figure 10, three salient subjects, “green logistics measures”, “challenge of the last mile delivery” and
“advanced technology
“advanced technology and and concept”
concept” areare identified
identified by by the
the overlapping
overlapping areas.
areas. The secondary titles are
also attached to reflect the detailed research research emphasis
emphasis of of each
each subject.
subject.
Green Logistics Measures

5.2.1. Green
Achieving green logistics goal usually relies on two dominant measures: one is to promote the
environmental-friendly energy (e.g., electric vehicle,
application of environmental-friendly vehicle, EV), and the other is to improve
logistics efficiency by policy-level incentives (e.g., nighttime
nighttime or or off-peak hour delivery), so as to
the negative
reduce the negativeeffect
effectofofCL
CL[80,81].
[80,81].EVEV system
system in CL,
in CL, seenseen
as aas a possible
possible alternative
alternative to thetofuel-
the
fuel-based
based logistics
logistics mode,
mode, has has
been been widely
widely discussed
discussed in in recent
recent years
years foritsitsoperation
for operationand
andmanagement,
management,
such as benefit estimation [82], economic feasibility [83], policy support
support [84], competitiveness
competitiveness [85],
[85],
investment risk [86], diffusion dynamic [87], business
business mode
mode [88]
[88] and
and implementation
implementation barrier
barrier [89].
[89].
Meanwhile, the off-peak hour delivery has been proven to achieve better transport sustainability in
terms of driving time, delivery reliability and energy
energy efficiency
efficiency [90,91].
[90,91].
5.2.2. The
5.2.2. The Last
Last Mile
Mile Delivery
Delivery Challenge
Challenge
With the
With the rapid
rapid development
development of of e-commerce
e-commerce and just-in-time demand,
and just-in-time challenges from
demand, challenges from last-mile
last-mile
delivery, such as time-efficiency and synchronization have become one of
delivery, such as time-efficiency and synchronization have become one of the bottlenecks inthe bottlenecks in CL
CL
operations management
operations management[5]. [5].The
Thecost
costofoflast
lastmile
miledelivery
delivery occupied
occupiedat at
most 75%
most of the
75% total
of the costcost
total of the
of
supply chain [92]. In recent years, the crowdsourcing mode (CSM) is considered
the supply chain [92]. In recent years, the crowdsourcing mode (CSM) is considered as one of theas one of the most
promising solution
most promising to cope
solution with with
to cope the gaps, which
the gaps, can be
which caninterpreted as a as
be interpreted concept of outsourcing
a concept of outsourcingthe
end-service
the to an
end-service to indirectly related
an indirectly community,
related community,such as neighbor
such or friend
as neighbor or friend[93]. Several
[93]. Severalsurveys
surveysof
logistics companies and public have indicated that CSM has gained high recognition in the logistics
process by reducing pollution emissions and can generate huge cost benefits [94].
Improving the capability of equipment and infrastructure is another way to solve the last mile
delivery problem. Initiatives in this area have focused on modular freight unit [95], self-collection
cabinet [96], mobile depot [97], light goods tricycle [98], autonomous robot [99], etc.
5.2.3. Advanced Technology and Concept

The development of advanced infrastructure, such as urban distribution center (UDC) and
urban consolidation center (UCC), is regarded as a sustainable and innovative solution to meet the
freight demand in future urbanization [12]. Especially, UCC as an intelligent transportation system is
gradually mature in practice, its implementation of the success factors and barriers are being hotly
discussed [55,100].
Furthermore, collaborative strategies, such as the shared use of tram [101], rail transit [102],
and metro network [103] for mixed passenger and freight movement, have been positively implemented
in some urban delivery projects, e.g., Zurich [104], Vienna [104], Dresden [105] and Paris [106].
The optimization of passenger-freight time window [107] and operational schedule [108] is currently
being hotly discussed.
Another ambitious concept is the urban underground freight pipeline and logistics system (ULS),
which aims to alleviate traffic congestion and vehicle emissions by shifting the goods movement from
urban road to a group of dedicated underground tunnels/pipelines [109,110]. The relevant research of
ULS, such as underground transportation technology [111], feasibility [112] and system design [113],
has actually experienced long-term study. Its practice has been supported by some national and
local governments [114], but has not been implemented on a large scale. In recent years, with the
prominent contradiction of urban transportation, ULS has ushered in a new round of development
peak. According to Dong et al. [115], several UDC-based modern ULS projects have already stepped
into the construction phase and been expected to operate within the next decade.
5.3. Logistics Network Design and Operational Research (G3)

In CL system planning, the mathematical modeling and optimization methods represented
by operational research (OR) play an important role in deepening complex knowledge of urban
freight transport into mathematical models with specific goals and constraints and designing accurate
or heuristic algorithms for computational optimization. Over the past decade, a large amount of
evidence has shown that the application of OR has not only attracted increasing research attention,
but also made a great contribution in reducing the actual logistics cost and improving the robustness
of decision-making in real-world cases [101,116]. Typical CL planning issues solved by OR are
summarized as follows, mainly including facility location problem (FLP), service network design problem
(SNDP), vehicle routing problem (VRP), freight scheduling problem (FSP), location-routing problem (LRP) and
their variants. However, the theoretical results obtained by relevant literature on these five issues are
not outstanding in practical sense, or are not directly related to the urban freight problem, which cannot
be summarized as existing research results of CL to some extent. As synthesized in Table 9, a total
of 28 representative documents from G3 were classified according to six domains recommended by
Nagy and Salhi [117]: basic OR attribute, constraint, model type, application area, solution method
and experimental size.
Table 9. The list of documents addressing the focused topic of G3.
Basic or Constraint Model type Experimental Size

Literature Source Aim and Objective Solution Method
Attribute (City/State Name)
TW Uncertainty Capacitated MIP Hierarchial Robust Dynamic
√ √
Oppenheim [118] VRP Mixed passenger and freight Frank-Wolfe alg. NA
√ √ √ √
Taniguchi and Shimamoto [29] VRP Intelligent transport system Genetic alg. 25 depots & 80 links
√ √ √
Hu et al. [119] VRP Common urban distribution Depth-first search alg. 106 depots (Beijing)
√ √ √ √
Crainic et al. [22] SNDP Common urban distribution Decomposition NA
√ √ √ √ √
Qureshi et al. [120] VRP-FSP Common urban distribution Branch and price alg. 100 depots (Tokyo)
√ 2
Zhong and Moodie [121] FLP Retail supply chain Genetic alg. 240 km area (Dalian)
Ehmke et al. [122] VRP Last mile delivery Hybrid heuristic 50 depots (Stuttgart)
√ √ Adaptive neighborhood search
Hemmelmayr et al. [28] VRP-LRP Common urban distribution 200 clients & 10 depots
alg.
√ √ √
Motraghi and Marinov [123] FSP Moving freight by metro Discrete event simulation Single metro line (Newcastle)
√
Smirlis et al. [124] VRP Third party logistics firm Data envelopment analysis 300 clients (Athens)
√ √ √ √
Jiang and Mahmassani [125] VRP Freight distribution manage Nearest neighbor heuristic 500 clients (Chicago)
√ √
Qureshi et al. [126] VRP Common urban distribution Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition 225 nodes, 789 links (Osaka)
√ √ √ √ √ √ √
Fatnassi et al. [108] SNDP-FSP Mixed passenger and freight Exact alg. 500 vehicles (Northampton)
√ √
Roca-Riu et al. [127] FSP Parking slot assignment CPLEX 8 parking nodes (Barcelona)
√ √ √
Yang et al. [128] FSP Vehicle lease planning Lagrangian relaxation alg. 50 nodes & 12 time periods
√ √ √
Ahani et al. [86] FSP EV replacement MATLAB solver 64km daily use
√ √ √
Archetti et al. [129] VRP-FSP Last-mile delivery Tabu search alg. 25 vehicles & 100 OD pairs
√ √ √ √ √ √
Crainic et al. [130] SNDP-VRP Adjust demand strategies Monte Carlo simulation 3 satellites & 25 client zones
√ √ √ √ √ Adaptive neighborhood search
Ghilas et al. [131] SNDP-FSP Common urban distribution 40 pickup & delivery orders
alg.
√ √ √
Park et al. [132] LRP Express service collaboration Two-phase heuristic 20 k households (Seoul)
√ √ √
You et al. [133] VRP Truck assignment Hybrid exact alg. 7 depots (California)
√ √
Behnke and Kirschstein [134] VRP Green logistics chain Shortest path alg. 1,000 nodes (Berlin)
√ √ √ √
Behiri et al. [102] FSP Urban rail freight transport Discrete event simulation Single rail line (Paris)
√ √ √ √
Boysen et al. [99] FSP Robots for last mile delivery Multi-start local search alg. 16 depots & 40 clients
√ √ √
Dong et al. [135] SNDP-FLP Moving freight by metro Artificial immune alg. 2 metro lines (Nanjing)
√ √ √ √
Marinelli et al. [136] SNDP EV network configuration Fuzzy C-Means Clustering 50 clients & 4 satellites
√ √ √ √ √ 2-approximation alg. & 60 demands & single rail line
Ozturk and Patrick [106] FSP Urban rail freight transport
dynamic program alg. with 30 stations (Paris)
√ √ √
Zhou et al. [137] VRP Last mile delivery Hybrid genetic alg. 164 clients (Chongqing)
TW: time window; MIP: mixed integer programming; alg.: algorithm; NA: not available.
5.4. Research Gaps and Agenda

The comprehensive trend and theoretic core of CL literature have been clarified and discussed
based on the scientometrics analysis and thematic review of the clustering results of CL literature.
Although considerable efforts have been made by researchers and practitioners in urban freight planning
and management, there are still some gaps that can be explored. Figure 11 builds an interactive
framework by incorporating major topics, methodology, measures, and objectives of CL based on prior
literature. Therein, knowledge advancement (method and theory), logistics innovation (technology
push), and urgency of demand (scenario pull) are generally recognized as the three main driving forces
for promoting sustainable urban freight transport [13,63]. For real-world practices, the inconformity
between CL planning strategies and the satisfaction of stakeholders is widely recognized as a dominant
obstacle to CL development. So far, the logistics activities have seldom been integrated into urban
planning agenda [53]. Therefore, the success factors and the policy implication for city logistics cases
should be highlighted as priorities for future research. In terms of knowledge, prior studies applied a
series of theories to discuss some key CL topics and show good effects, such as freight regulation [63],
ex-post evaluation [60], dynamic impact of different CL measures [42], and CL planning method [81].
The application of these theories needs to be further enriched in the future. In addition, a great deal of
attention is paid to explore the potential improvement measures to improve the sustainability and
efficiency performance of city logistics, including operational patterns, supply chain optimization,
role playing of stakeholder, and multimodal transportation. However, by reviewing the literature in
these fields, we find that the current knowledge system is far from being able to serve as a decision
support tool for the promoting such measures. The dotted links in Figure 11 denote the finding gaps
in current research, which along with the corresponding research agenda, are summarized as the
following three aspects.
City logistics regulation and guideline

Sustaining supervision Scenario Pull
Governance Theory
Potential City Logistics measures Real-world application and practices
Sustainable Development Theory
Diversified logistics Strong promotion
Ex-post evaluation of CL projects operational patterns
Lack of standard
Industrial innovation
Generic Bottleneck Theory
Knowledge Management Theory Supply chain optimization
Reinforced Performance Integrated into urban

Dynamic impact of the CL decision planning agenda
Vagueness Positive role playing of
Complex Adaptive System Theory stakeholders Inconformity
Multi-stakeholder Theory
Incompletness Stakeholder satisfaction
Metric and method of CL planning Multimodal transport in

urban dimension Success factors
Optimality Theory
Modeling and Simulation Theory
Technology Push
Figure 11. Research gaps framework of CL studies.
Figure 11. Research gaps framework of CL studies.
5.4.1. Fragmented Knowledge of the Performance Evaluating Guideline
5.4.1. Fragmented Knowledge of the Performance Evaluating Guideline
A number of indicators systems have been adopted to assess the benefits, social-environmental
A number
externalities of indicators systems
and performance have been
of CL policies andadopted
activitiesto[26,138].
assess the benefits, the
However, social-environmental
evaluation criterion
of externalities and performance
multi-dimensional of CL policies
scenario analysis, and and
dynamic activities [26,138].
universally However,urban
applicable the evaluation criterion
freight performance
of multi-dimensional scenario analysis, dynamic and universally applicable
and impact has not yet been formed. In particular, the discrete calculation of indicators often urban freight
leads
performance and impact has not yet been formed. In particular, the discrete calculation
to the inconsistent conclusion of the multi-dimensional coupling between the factors affecting the of indicators
often leads to the inconsistent conclusion of the multi-dimensional coupling between the factors
performance of CL.
affecting the performance of CL.
To fill this gap, one possible approach is extract and accumulate knowledge from a series of
To fill this gap, one possible approach is extract and accumulate knowledge from a series of
cases to develop a more comprehensive performance measurement model or criteria to suit categories
cases to develop a more comprehensive performance measurement model or criteria to suit categories
of situations. Semi-quantitative methods based on text mining and expert evaluation may be more
of situations. Semi-quantitative methods based on text mining and expert evaluation may be more
effective than mathematical models in some cases. Moreover, the construction of a scenario-based
platform for specific cities or regions may contribute to the systemization and synthesis of CL multi-
level evaluation and further promote information sharing and interaction in CL management.
5.4.2. Vagueness of Decision-Making Interaction among Stakeholders of CL from a Global

effective than mathematical models in some cases. Moreover, the construction of a scenario-based
platform for specific cities or regions may contribute to the systemization and synthesis of CL multi-level
evaluation and further promote information sharing and interaction in CL management.
5.4.2. Vagueness of Decision-Making Interaction among Stakeholders of CL from a Global Perspective

The operation and decision-making of CL involve many stakeholders, such as local authorities,
manufactures, logistics service providers (LSP), carriers, customers, and even the sharers of
transportation resources. Therefore, the stakeholder theory and complex adaptive system theory
are helpful to analyze the decision-making mechanism and interaction influence of multiple
participants. At present, the application of these theories is limited to analyze local [139,140] or
static relationships [141]. However, in the future, logistics planning will be an important part of
urban planning, and local governments will not only be the regulators, but also play multiple roles in
logistics activities [35]. From a global and dynamic perspective, the stakeholder behavior analysis and
interactive influence of urban logistics decision-making chain based on multi-level goals will become
an important research direction.
5.4.3. Incomplete CL Planning Method

Limited to the development concept of CL lags behind, the rail/road/shipping freight network
design or transportation scheduling methods from the LSP perspective are hard to be applied to
the logistics planning in the urban dimension. Table 9 reflects that the current exploration on CL
planning method is relatively narrow, and the model type is relatively simple. Key modeling features,
such as robustness [142] and uncertainty [143], which have been widely solved and applied in other
transportation fields, are rarely seen in the CL research. Considering the characteristics of urban freight
transport (e.g., complex stakeholders, urban ecology, and existing road-network infrastructure), the task
of CL planning with the requirements of urban sustainable development goals is extremely challenging.
In addition, emerging concepts and complementary solutions, such as crowd-sourcing,
consolidation strategy, collaborative passenger and freight movement and ULS, have not been
closely combined with urban characteristics to effectively solve the problems of urban planning so far.
The academic endeavor upon the feasibility and reliability of such the modal shift in CL planning,
construction, operation and overall management are still in the early age. The comparison and analysis
of various predictable innovations to improve urban freight practices can bring more possibilities and
opportunities for the sustainable development of CL in the future.
6. Conclusions
CL supports urban economy and sustainable development, but its negative externalities also
continue to deteriorate with the growth of demand. At present, the initiative of incorporating urban
logistics planning into the scope of urban planning is gradually recognized and valued by practitioners.
This paper systematically reviewed the status quo, trends and gaps of CL research and deeply analyzed
the prominent topics. Of 3210 records retrieved from five popular online databases, a total of 513
eligible documents were screened. Then, based on the scientometrics experiment, this paper made
a statistical analysis of the publication year profile, journal allocation and research methods of the
included literature, and constructed four kinds of visualized bibliographic information timeline maps
for the authorship network, international collaboration network, keywords co-occurrence network and
research topic clustering. The main findings are as follows:
• Since 2008, the annual number of papers published in CL domain has increased dramatically.
There were 10 times as many in 2018 (82 titles) as there were in 2008 (8 titles). Nearly half of the
CL literature (1993–2018) has been published within the past three years.
• Journals with major contributions and influence in the field of CL include Transport Policy,
Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, and Transportation Research Part
A: Policy and Practice.
• Modelling and simulation are the most popular method, followed by qualitative analysis and
conceptual research.
• Co-author network chart shows that Antonio Comi, Michael Browne, and Eiichi Taniguchi are the
most prolific authors, while the result of author co-citation analysis presents that Eiichi Taniguchi,
Laetitia Dablanc, and Hans Quak receives the most co-citations.
• The geographical distribution of CL literature indicates that a there is a wide, robust and
high-intensity collaboration among global countries/organizations in the field of CL.
• Keywords such as “sustainability”, “transportation policy”, “urban area”, “traffic congestion”,
“air quality”, “last mile delivery”, and “supply chain management” are frequently tracked, which is
consistent with the main research topics obtained by cluster analysis.
• Using data mining to cluster index keywords, 22 categories with timeline features were generated
automatically and further summarized into three themes, including decision support from a
sustainable perspective for logistics strategies, policies and management (G1), the impact of CL on
urban sustainable development and the real-world initiatives (G2), and logistics network design
and operational research (G3).
Afterwards, a series of topics, including sustainability, land use and environmental assessment,
green logistics measures, supply chain management, policy implications, crowdsourcing for the
last mile delivery challenge, advanced technologies and concepts, and logistics planning methods,
were proposed to explore the knowledge structure of CL. Finally, a framework was constructed to
analyze the gaps in current studies and propose the corresponding research agenda. The research
findings provide an intuitionistic demonstration for the bibliographic information of CL literature,
and put forward new ideas and requirements for the development of CL. It will contribute to
the evaluation of the current situation of CL and the grasp of the future direction by academics
and practitioners.
Inevitably, this work has limitations in specimen integrity. First, to avoid excessive invalid
records, the search field was limited to the “Title” field rather than the “Title/Abstract/Keywords” or
“Database terms”. This retrieval strategy will undoubtedly result in the loss of some literature related
to CL topics. Second, the shortlisted samples were all in English and only two conference-oriented
journals were reserved, while other proceedings, books, reports and manuscripts in other languages
were excluded. These limitations may affect the statistical results of the study, but have little impact on
the concentration of the research trends and the discussion of topics.
Author Contributions: R.R. contributed to data collection; W.H. and J.D. proposed the research framework,
analyzed the data and wrote the article; B.H. and Z.C. contributed to revising article.
Funding: This work was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants no. 71631007 and
no. 71601095).
Acknowledgments: The editors and anonymous reviewers of this paper are acknowledged for their constructive
comments and suggestions.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declared that they have no conflict of interest to this work.
Appendix A
The digital bibliographical information (Endnote format) of all literature retrieved in this work is
available at https://figshare.com/s/9c30a3627abdf9b3fa36.
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© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access
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A Scientometrics Review On City Logistics Literature: Research Trends, Advanced Theory and Practice

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sustainability

Keywords: city logistics; sustainable transport; literature review; scientometrics analysis;

Sustainability 2019, 11, 2724; doi:10.3390/su11102724 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability

Quantitative statistics structure

Stage 1: Three-step data collection method

Academic databases Duplicates Filter using Research method categories

Publication chronicle Overview of studying documents Articles across journals

Bibliographic visualization network

Stage 2: Scientometrics analysis

Classification of key research topics

Stage 3: Thematic discussion

Conclusive remarks Research gaps and agenda

Figure 1. Systematic protocol for reviewing city logistics research.

3.1. Material Comprehensive Retrieval

Table 1. Comprehensive retrieval outcomes.

EBSCO Initial Valid

3.2. Literature Selection

Step1: Comprehensive Step2: Records Step3: Duplicates Step4: literature

Databases 1,429 titles excluded:

(e.g. title, abstract,

690 titles keywords, authorship, Import data to Endnote

WOS core are removed inclusion/exclusion

3.3. Data Synthesis And Extraction

Table 4. Rank of journals in CL research productivity.

Source publication Host country Count Percentage Impact factor H-index

Table 4. Rank of journals in CL research productivity.

Source Publication Host Country Count Percentage Impact Factor H-Index

Table 5. Top 10 most cited documents in Google Scholar.

Document Year Journal Count Topic Related to CL

4.1. Authorship Collaboration Experiments

Table 6. Top 10 most productive authors.

Scholar Affiliation Country Count Percentage

Figure 5. Author co-citation network.

4.2. Geographical Experiments

4.2. Geographical Experiments

Figure 7. Geospatial distribution of published research documents

4.3. Keywords Co-Occurrence Experiments

4.3. Keywords Co-Occurrence Experiments

Figure 8. Network of co-occurring keywords.

Table 7. Citation burst of keywords.

No. Keywords Burst strength (BS) Duration

Table 7. Citation burst of keywords.

No. Keywords Burst Strength (BS) Duration

Figure 9. Timeline clustering map of research themes in CL field.

Table 8. Categories of CL keyword clusters (1993-2018).

Topic Group Cluster ID Size Cluster Label (LLR) Time Span

Underground logistics system

Green Logistics Measures

5.2.3. Advanced Technology and Concept

5.3. Logistics Network Design and Operational Research (G3)

Table 9. The list of documents addressing the focused topic of G3.

Basic or Constraint Model type Experimental Size

5.4. Research Gaps and Agenda

City logistics regulation and guideline

Reinforced Performance Integrated into urban

Metric and method of CL planning Multimodal transport in

5.4.2. Vagueness of Decision-Making Interaction among Stakeholders of CL from a Global

5.4.2. Vagueness of Decision-Making Interaction among Stakeholders of CL from a Global Perspective

5.4.3. Incomplete CL Planning Method

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